showering during thunderstorms and lightning

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:37 pm

my wife freaked because i just took a shower during thunder and lightning. i like the water tingly.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:06 pm

Yeah... and that's what the lobsters says before it boils.

Charlene · Post by **Charlene** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:26 pm

My mother used to have this whole long list of things not to do during a thunderstorm:

Don't bathe, use the toilet, or use the sink because lightning might hit the ground, hit the water pipes, and travel into the house and kill you.

Don't sew or even cut anything with scissors because the lightning will be attracted to the metal needle or scissors.

Don't sit or stand by an open window or door, or the lightning will hit you and kill you.

Don't use the phone, because lightning will hit the wires and travel through them and kill you.

Some of these things have happened (not to us), but so infrequently that it's not worth worrying about.

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:42 pm

Showering or bathing really isn't a good idea if the storm is right over you, as a strike that hits the house will generally ground out through the plumbing.

Redwolf

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:44 pm

Yeah, my husband thinks it's funny to take a shower when a thunderstorm is coming too---I suppose mainly because I start jumping up and down hollering at him. Men seem to have a very casual attitude toward electricity, for some reason. I think he would not take one if the storm was right on top of us. But there can be outlying strikes of lightening some distance from the storm.

If a thunderstorm is coming, I would never take a shower. I go to the bathroom and take care of all I need to before the storm comes. I wouldn't talk on the phone either. I wouldn't sit by a window, open or closed. I hadn't heard that about using scissors though---geez, one more thing to worry about

. It wouldn't be so bad if the lightening would just kill you outright. But I have heard of survivors who have been quite permanently and seriously disabled by lightening. Why take a chance?

missy · Post by **missy** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:49 pm

I think I might have told this story on here before....

Supposedly (I was too young to remember), my dad was hit by ball lightning. Mom was in the kitchen doing something, and she saw it come into the house, go through the open basement door, and down the stairs, then my dad yelled. He was in the basement, washing up at the stationary tubs. He said he was turning off the water (i.e. - grounded to the pipes) when he felt something like a hammer hitting him in the back of his neck. It was the ball lightning.
We got a lot of lighting. Our house was in a past corn field (no big trees), we lived right by Voice of America tower farm, right next to a huge switching station with some big transformers, and my dad was an amateur radio operator, so we had towers and wires all over the yard and house.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:46 pm

Honestly, I was in the basement of our house one day during a thunderstorm, doing laundry, and a bolt hit so close that I watched fireballs travel the pipes!! No joke! Given that experience, and knowing that water carries electricity rather well... I wouldn't shower in a storm.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:41 pm

I'd never heard of a problem with showering.

I do have a healthy respect for the power of electrical storms. I was in a house when it was hit by lightning once. It was terrifying. The lightning produced a radiation-like visual effect, the sort of thing you associate with nuclear explosions.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:25 am

Charlene wrote:My mother used to have this whole long list of things not to do during a thunderstorm:

Don't bathe, use the toilet, or use the sink because lightning might hit the ground, hit the water pipes, and travel into the house and kill you.

Don't sew or even cut anything with scissors because the lightning will be attracted to the metal needle or scissors.

Don't sit or stand by an open window or door, or the lightning will hit you and kill you.

Don't use the phone, because lightning will hit the wires and travel through them and kill you.

Some of these things have happened (not to us), but so infrequently that it's not worth worrying about.

Can't watch television, either, according to my mother. Or use a computer. Any electronics get unplugged.

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:46 am

The TV thing comes from when most people had rooftop antennas. There was some concern that a direct hit to the antenna could cause the TV to explode (whether it actually happened or not, I don't know, but certainly the aerials themselves were prime targets). Now that most people have cable antennas instead, it's not an issue...in fact, if you live in a tornado prone area, you WANT the TV on, so you can keep track of warnings.

I came as close as I ever want to come to being hit by lightning when we lived in North Carolina. I had gone out to the supermarket during a lull between storms. I could see another storm building, but figured I had time to run into the store for a few things before it got too bad. I was standing outside the car getting ready to unbuckle my infant daughter from her car seat when I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise and a tingling all over my body. I DOVE into the car (literally...head first!) and seconds later, heard a huge crash. I looked up, and a backhoe parked about 10 feet away from my car was still glowing with a lightening fork leading from it to the cloud overhead. If I'd stayed outside the car, there's a good chance I would have been hit by the ground shock. Very scary!

Redwolf

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:37 am

Redwolf wrote:The TV thing comes from when most people had rooftop antennas. There was some concern that a direct hit to the antenna could cause the TV to explode (whether it actually happened or not, I don't know, but certainly the aerials themselves were prime targets).

That's what happened in the case I was involved in. I mean the antenna was hit, not that the TV exploded, it didn't. How we knew afterwards that we'd taken a direct hit and not just been very close was that the antenna was bent shapeless and melted. The TV was quite undamaged; antennae should be grounded and clearly ours was.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:33 am

Congratulations wrote:Can't watch television, either, according to my mother. Or use a computer. Any electronics get unplugged.

There is good reason for that - Hubby is a computer guy, and has had to deal with the aftermath of the effect of lightning strikes on folk's computers.. really can do some serious damage,, and often has residual effects that show up later... a cascade effect... so often that he will no longer just replace parts in a lightning strike situation. Often, when the computer is damaged, the perifierals, and other eleectronics in the house or office are also affected. We definitely unplug during storms.

missy · Post by **missy** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:06 am

the ex had a shed set up in our backyard, about 150 feet away from the house, under some trees. This was his office, had his computer (this was an Apple IIE, so that tells you how long ago) etc. in it.
The shed got hit by lightning. I mean, I saw, felt and smelled the direct hit!
It blew holes in the drywall - propelled a metal thermometer across the room and embedded it in the opposite wall, and bascially blew up the monitor of the computer. When I say blew up - I mean the thing looked like a bomb had been set off in it.
The computer itself wasn't hurt a bit.

Luckily, we had the wiring on the shed in a separate fuse box, so that was the farthest the strike got to hitting the whole house.

When we were talking about it, the ex's brother asked "Didn't you have a surge protector for the computer?". Ah - John - the SHED took a direct HIT! What good would a surge protector have done????

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:12 am

People have been killed being anywhere near water indoors or outdoors during electrical storms. Showering is just a childish game of daring nature to do its worst.

People have been hurt while on the phone during an electrical storm, as well.

I had a stereo whose power switch was jumped and fused indoors by a lightning strike. It was off during the storm and suddenly came on by itself and I couldn't turn it off. This scared the bejeezus out of me.

Handling scissors or needles during a storm will not hurt you.

Being near an open window or door (I love to watch lightning) becomes dangerous if there is ball lightning in your area.

Being the tallest object outdoors near a lightning strike almost guarantees you being hit. If you are outdoors, get low and stay low.

I'm not sure if it is still up, but there was a clip on YouTube of a soccer game in South Africa where a bolt of lightning hit a soccer field during a big match. Players for about fifty feet around the strike all went down with serious injuries, even though they were not hit directly, such was the power of the strike.

djm

rhulsey · Post by **rhulsey** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:32 am

I grew up in Oklahoma, and storms were a seemingly everyday affair for parts of the year. I recall my mom having the rest of us scramble to unplug the washer and dryer when there was lightning about. We lived on a hill and to my knowledge never took a hit, thankfully.

As kids, we played in a large field across the street, and as a storm was brewing we all ran for a our respective houses, and as lightning struck the only tree in the middle of the field, i recall my hair (hair? what's that?!) standing on end and feeling "fuzzy" all over as i remember describing it.

Do I shower when a storm is around? Nary a chance!

reg